The basic income, or guaranteed minimum income or negative income tax, is a proposal, meant to replace all current welfare and government assistance programs, to provide every adult citizen with an income large enough that he need not fear deprivation of the necessities of civilised life if he does not work.

History

The first well-known proposal for such a universal income was the social credit movement, which suffered from the fatal defect that its founder integrated with it an erroneous economic system that was not fully accepted by other leaders in the movement.

More recently it has been proposed by a few prominent right-wing theorists, such as Milton Friedman (once) and Charles Murray, as a replacement for our current over-complicated and inefficient welfare and redistribution system.

Reasoning

It would go a long way toward economic equality between men and women, and attacking the tyranny of the capitalist system. The cost would be less than twice the sum of all current programs, and further reduced by the myriad inefficiencies that would be removed. For a more detailed argument see the post linked to below.